


Nothing much

by AssyEr



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort, How Do I Tag, M/M, Referenced - Freeform, The Lonely Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), basically is martin thinking about that bit, fond memories of scorpions, i almost had a heart attack because i couldnt find the jon/martin relationship tag, kind of, post mag 188, set in a parallel universe where there are scorpions in britain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssyEr/pseuds/AssyEr
Summary: “I mean… not to be… uh… that isn’t exactly a surprise, is it? That The Lonely seems, comfortable to you?”Martin thinks about what Jon said.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Nothing much

**Author's Note:**

> Hello fellow tma fans, how we doing?  
> Its been ages since i read anything on the tma tag, and im not very in tune with the fandom, but after mag 188 this happened, and i decided to post it, because why not.

“I mean… not to be… uh… that isn’t exactly a surprise, is it? That The Lonely seems, comfortable to you?” Jon says, giving Martin what he thinks is a discrete look of concern, but ends up being as subtle as a truck, and only serves to gives his boyfriend a small ping of guilt.

Because he was already over it, Martin wants to scream at him. He had faced The Lonely, not once but twice if you counted his own domain, and managed to get back to him. He shouldn’t be worried.

Even if the word comfortable keeps echoing inside his head a little too much.

“I guess not” he answers, and is glad when Jon turns the conversation back to the hellescape they are currently crossing.

But still. They talk, and walk, and Martin tries to concentrate on what’s happening, he really does, but it doesn’t stop what Jon said from lingering on his mind. He does his best to ignore it, hoping for it to go away, like some weird itch he can’t reach to scratch, but in the end Jon is the first to leave.

And Martin sits alone on the floor to wait for him to be done.

Well, not alone, not _really_. It would be impossible to ignore all the cameras, and the sensation of being watched is the strongest he ever felt. But he has also worked on the archives, has also been walking for… too long, in the literal apocalypse, and if one can get used to that…

The point is, it has never been easy for him to ignore that kind of thoughts, and it’s not exactly as if the eye would volunteer to help.

_‘It isn’t exactly a surprise’_

That is what Jon had said. Was he that predictable?

Martin sighs as he buries his face on his hands. He is _tired_ of this. Of it always being the same, on walking on circles. It seemed that no matter how much better he felt, how much he _improved_ , he inevitable ended there, face to face with the Lonely, and half a step away from returning.

It was almost as if it had been designed for him. Like a carnivorous plant, and Martin was a fly looking for a place to rest. So comfortable, so sweet, and with a smell that never failed to captivate him. It didn’t matter that he already knew how much of a mistake it was, he always ended getting dangerously close to it.

That first time, when Peter had made his offer, how much had it been trying to save the world and how much him finally giving in? It… hadn’t been easy, to give into the entity, but it hadn’t either been an arduous affair.

Comfortable. Jon had been right. It had been comfortable to give in then, and then he had almost done so twice more. Three, perhaps.

That house, with the uncomfortable chairs, that had been the ugly part of The Lonely. It had been the emptiness on his chest, and the longing, and the voice in his head that refused to admit that there was something wrong, that pushed him to remain sit on the furniture.

But he had gotten out, all for himself. Alone, this time. He had defeated it.

But then why did he still felt tempted to go back to it?

Not the house. Or that beach, either. But to that calmness, to stop walking and standing still as life passed around him, to the numbness of watching everything flow away and the strange comfort of knowing he didn’t have to go with them. That he could stay as he was, and sooner or later he would lost sight of all he knew. All that hurt and tired him.

He- Himse- Martin. Also Martin. AlsoMartin had said that it was okay to want a rest now and then. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure whether it really was a part of his domain or himself -- was there any difference? --, Martin had to admit that it did prove to be a good copying mechanism to deal with trauma.

AlsoMartin would tell him that it was fine, that there was no real way of getting over something permanently. That it didn’t make him any less, or weaker, or whatever that fuzzy feeling of frustration at his situation was named.

Martin would then say that it wasn’t about that. But that he had been faced with it, with The Lonely, so many times already, and every single of those he could still feel how close he had been to giving up to it. And he was sure, as their luck would have it, that it wouldn’t be the last time he had to face it. If every time he was so near to loose himself, and the events repeated once and again and again, well… it would only be a matter of time before. It happened. Again.

Martin couldn’t allow that. What would be of Jon? Of the world. He had a responsibility, he couldn’t just give up. He needed to be stronger, more than this.

Even Jon could see how close he was to failing.

But he didn’t call what happened to Daisy a failure, AlsoMartin would retort. Those things, those beings were literally eldritch forces that had been around since before anyone could remember. Before existence itself, maybe. He had to realize that it was unrealistic of himself to expect to be able to just brush off any attempt of their part to get him. What they had all achieved was fairly impressive as it was.

And he didn’t think of Jon as weak because of what happened to him, did he?

“No!” the cameras around him made that horrible mechanical sound as they readjusted their lenses to focus again on the now standing up Martin, following his movements as he started pacing in small circles.

“No,” he repeated aloud once more, now calmer.

He stopped for a second.

He knew what AlsoMartin was trying to make him see, and he knew he was right. He had known it all the while, that same voice whispered, it just that it made him feel better to blame himself. If it was his fault, it meant that he was doing something wrong, that he could stop doing and then all would be fine.

The truth was that Martin didn’t know what to think of the situation. What to do. He couldn’t live with the uncertainty that someday The Lonely would appear again and-

“Martin?” He was pulled out from his thoughts by Jon’s voice. He was walking towards him, a worried expression on his face. “Are you alright?” The Archivist asked him, stretching his hand towards him in offer.

_That isn’t exactly a surprise, is it?_

Martin accepted it, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Yeah, just thinking.” What does Jon think of him? He knew how The Lonely felt to him. He had even asked if he would rather stay there. Gods. Did it come as a surprise every time he choose to take his hand? He shook his head, choosing to focus on the present instead. “How was it?” there was no need to specify what he was referring to.

“It… it went like it always does. Nothing out of the ordinary”

He could see the feelings that hid behind the response. The man was tired, and angry. He wanted this to be over, and honestly? So did Martin.

He gave his boyfriend a small bump to his side. “Shall we continue?”

Much to Martin’s satisfaction, it seemed to cheer him a little. “Sure”

They kept walking for a… yes. They kept walking for a Yes amount of time, because time wasn’t real anymore and any other adjective than Yes was no longer applicable.

They kept walking for a Yes amount of time, in which Martin actually managed to get Jon to tell him some story from his childhood, and one happy nonetheless. He talked about how sometimes, in the summer, he and his grandmother would find small scorpions making home on their house. She would put them in a jar, alive, so they could later take them to the hospital, so it could do whatever hospitals did with small venomous creatures.

The jar indeed would be put above the highest cabinet in the kitchen, because mistakes had been made before. That however wouldn’t stop young, curious Jon from waiting until his grandma was out and climb a chair tall enough for him to reach his prize. He liked to watch the animal closely, observe the way it moved, raise the jar to analyze its lower part.

Jon then proceeds to tell him how it was recently found out that scorpions are actually bioluminescent under UV light, and they can glow even after hundreds of years of its death.

And Martin knows he should be paying attention, he does. He loves it when Jon rambles, and normally he would find the information quite interesting, but he can’t stop thinking about what Jon had said.

_I mean… not to be… uh… that isn’t exactly a surprise, is it? That The Lonely seems, comfortable to you?_

_But if you think there’s a lack of violence, or suffering, then I’m afraid you are mistaken._

He knows that it’s all terror and pain, The Lonely. He isn’t stupid. Even if it looks comfortable and nice, it only existed to cause dread, like the rest of them.

Then why did it still seemed comfortable to him?

“And its sting is partly metallic-” Jon stopped talking, shaking his head a bit. “I, um, sorry. I rambled, you should have stopped me”

That managed to get Martin out of his head, finally looking at the other man. Jon seemed somewhat self-conscious, looking everywhere but at him, which managed to make him feel even worse. “No, it’s- sorry, I’ve just, been distracted. You were talking about scorpions?”

But Jon didn’t seem to be on the mood to talk about them anymore. “What were you thinking about?”

Uh.

“Nothing much” he was quick to answer, in a tone perhaps too high.

“Martin? If-”

“I mean,” Martin trailed off. “It’s just, The Lonely, you know?”

Jon, who did in fact not known, got worried about the statement. “What about it?” he asked.

He took a moment to think about what to say, before speaking. “It’s… You know how we’ve been traveling, and we- I had to face it like, what, three times if you count that creepy suburbs, and. I don’t know. It doesn’t get, easier, I suppose. Like, I know it’s bad, obviously, I know it’s a much elaborated trap, but it’s like you said. It… never really… stopped being somewhat, appealing to me”

“Martin…”

“And I know it’s dumb, I know that they are this, Gods, or whatever, but I’m. I’m afraid that maybe next time I won’t be strong enough, and I’ll get. Lost.” He said that last part in a small voice, and if they weren’t in the middle of nowhere, it might have been too low for his boyfriend to hear.

But he did hear, and he did understand. “It’s not dumb,” he tried to assure him. “I- these things, they take the form of what we want. And even if we know it’s them, it is hard to get away, you know that”

Martin kicked out a small rock on his path in frustration. “I know, I know. But what if next time I’m not enough?” he looked up towards Jon, trying to search on him if not an answer then some sort of relief. “What if it gets me?”

And Jon, wonderful Jon, who was probably as afraid as he was, with the difference that he knew too much to be able to hold to the hope of some unknown deus ex machina as Martin did, took his hand on his, and gave it a kiss, before looking at his eyes, and told him with a stern voice, “I won’t let it”

Was a lie really a lie if they were both aware of its falsehood? AlsoMartin would probably have some uncomfortable reflection about it, trailing off about what it means to lie and whether it was morally good or not. But Martin, this Martin who was squeezing Jon’s hand in return, couldn’t care less about it.

They both looked at the other, knowing that they were thinking the same thing. Remembering the time Jon had explained that there wasn’t any real way of helping people caught by the entities. How they could only be victim or victimizer.

They also recalled the time Martin had been trapped on that place, with the uncomfortable chairs and no memory whatsoever. Jon saying that he had troubled Seeing him there.

“I love you,” Martin told him, still anxious about the prospect of losing himself, but not wanting to lose the chance to say it, now that he could.

“I love you too” with a small tug, Jon asked him for a hug, that the other happily conceded. They were together, and it was nice, and it was all they really cared for in that moment.

**Author's Note:**

> If i missed any tags please im begging you to let me know
> 
> Also its scorpion season in here and im going to proyect my love of those bastards on Jon if it kills me


End file.
